Ethiopia Sidama Bonko

The cup taste has distinct brightness, sugary, confectionery sweetness , accented with citrus and a touch of spice. The body is clear and light, which suits the high tonal range of the cup well. I recommend light roasts here to compliment the bright cup. City to Full City.

This is a wet-processed coffee from the Bonko area, and the Bonko wet mill. I just can't say Bonko enough, you see. Bonko in the Sidama region, Dara Woreda (district). Bonko is a private washing station with about 350 farmers from the area selling their coffee cherry to the mill. Bonko farmers average less than 1/2 hectare each (1 acre) so you usually talk about farms by number of trees, rather than land area. I visited this mill earlier this month to see the early harvest for the coming crop that was coming in. They use a traditional disc pulper to remove the coffee cherry fruit skins, then use a very long 72 hour under-water, traditional fermentation to break down the mucilage layer of the fruit. The coffee is vigorously agitated in the fermentation tank with wooden paddles to work the mucilage off, then washed to a soaking tank for a clean water overnight bath. Finally it is taken to the raised beds for drying. It's the classic coffee processing method in Sidama and Yirga Cheffe zones, and one that develops very sweet and clean coffees.

The dry fragrance is mouth-watering in its sweetness, citrusy, with a light brown sugar scent. It develops a very sweet milk chocolate quality, laced with orange notes, at Full City roast. Adding hot water, the wet aromatic is piquant and delicately spiced with a fennel cookie sweetness and zesty, lemony-bright fruit. The cup taste has distinct brightness as well. (I hate to make a cliche, but ... it really "dances on the palate"). There is that sugary, confectionary sweetness , accented with citrus and a touch of spice. The body is clear and light, which suits the high tonal range of the cup well. I recommend light roasts here to compliment the bright cup, and not to overshadow the flavors I mention with a veil of darker roast taste. But I had great FC roasts as well. The body is a little heavier at FC, and the chocolate roast taste is suave, layered, backed with dark fruit tones. And if you like fairly bright espresso, and lighter body is okay with you, we have been pulling AMAZING single origin shots with this Bonko, roasted to Full City, just before 2nd cracks starts.